Wherever you see a man who gives someone else's corruption, someone else's prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.

All progress is experimental.

Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth.

Inspired teachers ... cannot be ordered by the gross from the factory. They must be discovered one by one, and brought home from the woods and swamps like orchids. They must be placed in a conservatory, not in a carpenter shop; and they must be honored and trusted.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.

Nothing is more injurious to the character and to the intellect than the suppression of a generous emotion.

People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this; that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.